So the long-awaited OS update came to our Series2 Tivo a week or so ago. Aside from supporting the new TivoToGo service, I’ve noticed only two things with the new version.

1. The UI feels slower.
2. While listening to music with the Home Media Option, the current song’s info banner moves around every few seconds (presumably to avoid burn-in).

I’m sure there are others, but that’s what I noticed. On to TivoToGo…

This update also added a web server and small web app to the Tivo box. This can be reached using https://[tivoipaddress]/nowplaying/index.html (note the “s” for secure http). You’re prompted to log in with “tivo” as the username and the password is your Media Access Key (you can find this in your Tivo’s System Information page).

Once logged in, you can see your current recordings and even download the .TiVo files to your machine. This approach for getting at video files isn’t officially supported, but it’s kinda cool to see the actual file sizes for all those shows you’re hanging on to.

Alternatively, you can use the new Tivo Desktop software (version 2.0), which provides a nice little UI for viewing your recordings, copying a bunch of them at once, and launching a media player to view the local files. Note that you MUST install the Tivo Desktop app, even if you plan to use the web interface to download them. This is because installing the desktop app forces you to provide your Media Access Key and a “playback password” (which you’re prompted for each time you watch a show on your PC).

Tivo says that viewing that watching the .TiVo files on your machine requires Windows Media Player 10 and and a codec. I’ve had good luck with the Intervideo codec that comes with WinDVD, but it seems there are lots of free/cheap codecs out there to choose from. I also found a program called The Core Media Player, which seems to play them all by itself just fine. Tinkering with codecs is a pain, but the ones listed on the official Tivo page seem to work well enough.

Once the desktop app is installed, the files are transferred, and you have WMP set up with a compatible codec, you’re set.

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1. As you can imagine, the files themselves can be quite large. A half-hour show I tested was about 680MB and a 2–hour movie is a few gigs of data.

2. These files naturally take a while to transfer to your local machine. Not only are they large to transfer, but the Tivo does some type of on-the-fly encoding/conversion of the files with your media access key. This is to ensure that someone can’t just post a file to the file-sharing networks and have it be viewable everywhere. I also understand that it takes even longer if your Tivo is otherwise busy (ie. recording a show), which makes sense given that the CPU is occupied.

3. To make the long transfer times liveable, I switched our Tivo from being wireless to being wired (using the Linksys USB200M). I was getting about 750kb/sec, which made a 680MB file transfer in about 15–18 minutes. It should have been faster for a file that size, but again the Tivo itself is “processing” the file as it copies it to your local machine — so that’s the bottleneck. Another thing you can do is use the Tivo Desktop software to queue the files up for copying… click some checkboxes, push a button, and go to bed.

4. Apparently, the 7.x version of the Tivo OS adds 802.11g and USB 2.0, which might make wireless transfers liveable (though still not as fast as wired).

5. Closed-captioning information isn’t retained in the files that end up on your machine.

6. You can learn all sorts of geeky things about the service from the hardcore Tivo fans at http://www.tivocommunity.com.

7. I think Tivo really needs to do something about the codec issue. Unless you have a machine that already has a DVD player package, you may not have a codec that lets you play back the mpeg2 files in Windows Media Player (or elsewhere). And using one of their recommended codecs means you pay $15 for the service that is otherwise marketed as free. Not a big hit to the wallet, but I do see the whole “download and install a codec, configure WMP, wait for long file transfers” thing deterring the non-geeks out there. It certainly wouldn’t meet the Wife-Acceptance test.

8. Some codecs and configurations make seeking forward/backward impossible, leaving you with just the WMP slider bar to navigate within a show. That’s a pain, but the Core Media Player did allow moving forward/backward easily with the right/left arrows. The size of the jump is configurable, so you could make the right-arrow jump exactly 30 seconds to skip commercials.

9. To burn a show on to a DVD, Tivo says you need the Sonic MyDVD software (not worth the link). The http://www.tivocommunity.com gang can point you to other options that supposedly work (haven’t tried them myself)… but the MyDVD software does apparently use the PACE Interlok copy-protection mechanism. I’m somewhat familiar with this “solution” because it’s used by several vendors in the electronic music world (particularly with soft synths and fx plugins)… lots of problems have been reported with this over the last few years, mostly because it replaces kernel-level drivers on your machine. Even if you uninstall MyDVD, those are left behind… nasty stuff and lots of electronic musicians (myself included) simply won’t purchase software that uses it.

10. Bottom line… in a pinch, it’s a useful option to have. I don’t see its release as a huge win for Tivo in the market (getting it to work still feels too “techy”), nor do I see it as something that even tech-geek Tivo owners will use a great deal. On the other hand, if you are the geeky type and you regularly travel, it’s a handy way to have something to watch during layovers or long flights.

… to the 2005 resolutions, huh?

Thus far, 2005 has sucked pretty mightily. Illness in my extended family, illness here at home, Allie catching pneumonia, Michelle and I both being sick… yuck.

On the upside, not all is lost with those resolutions. I am reading more and I have taken some steps on that personal project I mentioned. I got a good book on Vegas Video, which has given me some ideas for that video project I mentioned. And while I haven’t exactly taken a ton of pictures, I have been to two different Nikon classes in the last month and picked up some great pointers.

The downside… exercise has suffered (been sick), blogging has suffered (sick, lazy, busy, whatever), and this site still looks the same.

Still, my Firefox bookmarks include a “Blog This Stuff” folder that’s jammed with links, article ideas, and other possible blog entries.

I’ll try to do better.

Oh… and we have a 20–week ultrasound appointment this Friday. That’s gotta be good for a blog entry, right?

So Tivo finally announced their TivoToGo service… with it, you can transfer recorded shows to your laptop to watch “on the go”. Later this month, they’re supposed to have an app available that lets you burn those shows to DVD as well. It’s a slick service that’s been in the works for a while.

In order for it to work, Tivo has to roll out a software upgrade to all their Series 2 boxes. And their web site says that this can take several weeks! I understand that rolling out an upgrade to that many boxes is a big deal, but that still seems like a really long time. There are some reports of people getting it already, but no such luck here. Tivo put up a “get on the priority list” page, but who knows what effect that has.

I just know I want it now. Patience is not one of my virtues.

Glad to hear that all is well with Justin Rogers. He hadn’t blogged or been in touch with anyone since mid-November, so Darren Neimke tracked him down. Justin’s been one of the more prolific bloggers that I read regularly and is the only .NET blogger whose name is a folder of its own in my Firefox bookmarks (too hard to categorize his articles!).

Anyway, I’m glad that all’s well and I hope Justin will be blogging again soon.

… is hard. It’s easy to come up with a list of all the things I want to do, change, start, finish, or otherwise commit to. It’s hard to make a list that has a chance at getting done. After all, a year is a long time and who can say how things will move up or down in importance.

Instead, I think I’m going to try to come up with quarterly resolutions. This way, the timeframe is smaller and I can take on more manageable goals. That’s my approach to development projects as well… make a list of components. Prioritize them. Take the top few and break them into tasks. Prioritize those. Get to work. That’s how you eat an elephant.

So here’s my list of goals for Q1 2005:

• Exercise at least 3 times a week — using the bike when I have to be indoors, playing soccer more when the weather’s good.
• Read more fiction, starting with Cryptonomicon.
• Begin development on a side project that’s been kicking around in my head for a while. I’d like to have the database done, the DAL created, and start the framework.
• Take more pictures with our new camera, particularly with the camera in Manual mode.
• Improve this site, including a new layout, a photos section, at least one article, and more useful links.
• Blog more — at least 4 times a week.
• Complete another retrospective video for Allie (I’ve got lots of raw footage).

With luck, I’ll make a good dent on all of these… maybe posting them here will keep me honest.

Hard to believe that my blog, which hasn’t seen any attention by me in over a month, was picked up by comment spammers but sure enough — a bunch of cheeseball comment spam in the last few days.

Rather than delete it all by hand on-going, I’ve disabled comments for now. As it turns out, one of my to-do items for this weekend is to do some work on the blog. I’ve got a bunch of entries I want to add, possibly switch skins, add some stuff to the Links section, etc. Basically, regular blogging is one of my New Years resolutions and it has to start with cleaning up the place. Looks like adding a CAPTCHA capability for comments is on the list now also.

Christopher Hawkins addresses a post from Joel On Software's discussion groups. The author isn't happy with his job because he's involved with technical sales, building proposals, and other non-coding activities.

I tend to agree with Christopher's response on this. As nice as it might be some days to just put on some music and sling code, that task doesn't have the value in the market that it used to. Can you find that job? Sure, but there are fewer of them and the pay won't be what it could be if you're adding value elsewhere in the process also.

I liken to to mowing the lawn or raking leaves. I actually find those tasks to be enjoyable and relaxing (though not exactly stimulating). But how much are those tasks worth if I'm paying someone else to do them? Not much. On the other hand, what if you're a landscape designer who can come up with the whole yard's design, coordinate with various vendors to get the materials, and then execute on the design as part of a team? You've got more value and maybe every now and then you can pick up the rake. Meanwhile, your employer can find just about anyone to push the mower or rake the leaves.

Note that this is not about the complexity or difficulty of yardwork versus writing code. It's about adding value to an entire process, instead of being one cog in one particular wheel in one part of the whole device.

And mostly, it's about employability. Add value in a way that someone else (and these days, someone somewhere else) can't and your job is no longer just a commodity. Show that you're a key part of the whole process. Get involved in figuring out what's being built. Get involved in the architecture and design work. Get involved in the sales support process. Be the "go-to" person.

I can't remember where I read it, but someone earlier this year put it well in a blog post (paraphrasing from memory): Those programmers who want to sit in a cube, limiting themselves to just writing code, and waiting for a complete spec doc to get tossed over the wall, are going to be in for a surprise. They may come in and find that the doc was shipped overseas instead.

I didn't realize how far behind I am with blogging things. I've got several .NET posts kicking around in my head, as well as a rant or two... but for some reason it's not yet "habit" to fire up BlogJet and fire off a post. I wonder how the more prolific bloggers turn that corner.

Ok... so is this a typo, or is CompUSA cashing in on all the breathless Halo2 hype? I happened to be surfing http://www.compusa.com tonight and saw that price. I did a double-take before realizing that it was a data entry error (11/09/04 was the Halo2 release date). Oops

Speaking of Halo2 -- well, I can't speak of it because I don't yet have it. I'm hot-and-cold when it comes to video games. Sometimes I'm into it, other times I go weeks or months without playing much.

I did get two-thirds of the way through the first Halo before I got sidetracked by work, the soccer season, Madden and FIFA 2005, and so on.

So I made a decision to NOT buy Halo2 until I finished the campaign in the first Halo. I did that this afternoon and wished I'd done it sooner... that final challenge in the final chapter (destroying the core and the Warthog "joyride") were so intense! It was a lot of fun (and it took me a while before I could make it through).

So now I can go get Halo2, get my butt kicked online, and enjoy all the cool multiplayer/online stuff they've added.

As an amateur musician and recording geek, I've been following the recent "podcasting" discussions with some interest. I think it's interesting for two reasons -- one reason is the application of an existing technology (RSS or syndicated news feeds) for a new purpose (binary enclosures, usually some form of audio). While this is merely evolutionary (nowhere near revolutionary), it has the potential to be one of those watershed points when the average schmoe gains the ability "to be heard". It happened in the 80's with desktop publishing programs. It happened in the 90's with inexpensive digital recording gear and the proliferation of MP3 as a "universal audio format". More recently, it's happening with blogs.

But with podcasting, how much is really new? What barrier to entry has been lowered? What long, cumbersome process has been overhauled? The ability to record audio? Nope... if you're on the go, you can get a handheld digital recorder dirt cheap these days and many PDAs have the ability to record audio and put it in your computer for upload. For the less mobile, a cheapo microphone plugged into your soundcard and a free audio program does the trick.

Is it the ability to get your audio out to a wide audience? Nah, anyone can put up a web page for free these days and make audio files available for download (some even get sued for it when the files they post don't belong to them). You could argue that it's hard for would-be consumers of that content to find the producers that interest them -- but that hasn't changed here. I still have to go out and find the podcaster or audio-blogger I'm interested in. And we can look back to the late 90's incarnation of mp3.com as a better example of bringing producers together and making it easier for consumers to find what interests them.

So what is new? From my perspective, the "new" part is combining RSS (a pull mechanism wherein I subscribe to what interests me) with portable audio players that continue to drop in price while features and capacity rise. With podcasting, I can get the audio content I want when it becomes available. No more reminders to check a web site. No more subscribing to email newsletters and then surfing to a download site. It just gets to where I want it, as soon as it's available.

For me, Rory Blyth describes it well when he says that it's just a way to syndicate binary content -- a description I completely agree with. And in that sense, I think the name "podcasting" does this "next step for content" a disservice because it focuses on audio. The enclosure tag that makes binary content possible could just as well contain pictures (piccasting? gifcasting?), video content (vidcasting? porncasting?), or chapters of an e-book (novelcasting? fictcasting?). In each case, I can think of an example that excites me more than "the audio blog":

PicCasting - There are some great photographers and amazing digital artists out there. I'd love to subscribe to a few "image feeds" that highlights their latest work on a regular basis. Even if your intent is to sell them, put up a feed with smaller images or subtle watermarks.

VidCasting - Please, Mr. Scoble, let me subscribe to a Channel 9 video-only feed. As the Channel 9 crew puts out a new video, my aggregator pulls down the WMV and jams it into a local directory. As prevalent as high-speed access is, sometimes the streaming video just isn't practical. Later: Woo hoo, looks like the feed on the Videos page does have <enclosure> tags!

BookCasting - Again, there are a lot of great writers out there who do some amazing short stories and/or in-depth technical articles. Turn your novel into a series of PDF chapters and let me subscribe... if it's good, I'll watch my aggregator anxiously for the next chapter.

Ok, so the "casting" suffix has run its course.

Finally... back at the top of this post I mentioned that the podcasting "phenomenon" interests me for two reasons and, no, I didn't forget the second reason -- it's the hype. It's the breathless regurgitation of how THIS is the next big thing! THIS is going to change the playing field! THIS is going to start a revolution! Ugh... just when the bubble-hangover was subsiding.

Here's where my interest really starts to wane. Scott Hanselman, prior to being called a Luddite, puts it well when he says "you can't speak as fast as I read." I think the blogs (or other content) that DO work well as audio are few and far-between.

Understand that I've been downloading .NET Rocks and listening during my commute since its infancy. That show works and I plan to listen to the new one as well -- for the content. I tried a couple of episodes of Adam Curry's "Daily Source Code" recently -- that show doesn't. As Greg Hughes said in this post, a medium that talks about itself feels a lot like MLM (multi-level marketing). For whatever media reputation Adam Curry brings to the plate, the Daily Source Code comes across as a guy sitting in his basement talking to, and about, his own personal ecosystem. Well, except for when his wife walks in to tell him dinner's ready. Or the dog barks because it has to go out and piss. In between, we're treated to an echo chamber wherein the media's podcasting darling talks about... well, podcasting.

So yeah, I think podcasting syndicating binary content has a lot of value... for now, it's largely unrealized value.